Lucky

And what about the fact that he was adjusting his jeans when he left? And that wet spot?

Oz, thanks for joining in. I see that you are, so far, the only one. I wonder how many guys are reluctant to say what they are reading lest they be jumped on for their reading tastes? I like reading and do so to please myself. If I am not highbrow enough, tough! I am sure having a good time.

I thought you would be heading to the casino. But thanks for the humble and gracious statement.

Well, who would we say it to? His family? His friends? Not likely. We'd be saying it to each other and that wouldn't be worth a lick of spit. I didn't know this guy and sure wish he hadn't suffered the misfortune that he did. But how many guys have to die before others catch on that they are playing a deadly game? We see regular deaths among these porn actors, yet they don't seem to think the same thing can happen to them. To be so stoned that you can't cross a street means you should stay inside. I understand that youth often feel immortal, but they have had so many warnings now that it's hard to feel sympathetic. And where is the wisdom of going to Mexico to do drugs? Has the reputation of the Mexican prison not been told to porn actors? Am I being too harsh? I repeat, I wish this had not happened, but it was predictable.

An HIV positive Iowa man used a condom to have sex with an HIV negative man but was later arrested and imprisoned for not telling the guy he was HIV positive. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, placed on Iowa’s sex offender registry and owes tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, court costs and restitution. The other man did not contract the virus. Read about the cops showing up with weapons, arresting and jailing him. Read on to see how his legal battle is going: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012307290070&nclick_check=1

It would be nice if those here who like to read, and have the time to do so, would keep the rest of us informed on what they are reading. I like to travel and read, so much so that I get a kick out of traveling and reading vicariously. I also understand that what interests me may not interest you, and vice versa. But it is fun to share stories, and what you read can give me some ideas as well. I just finished Brad Thor's Black List. Some might see Thor as a flag waver, think his novels have too much testosterone, or simply don't enjoy such good guy/bad guy stories. But his are well-written, and Black List informative on how the government is subverting our right to privacy.See the Politics Forum, where Lookin links to an article about a huge NSA data center being built in Utah that will allow the government to spy on us better than ever. That data center is the heart of Thor's novel when a secret shadow government of very powerful people take it over. Don't like that? Well, I am now reading Mr. Lucky, by James Swain. In the summertime, my library allows checkouts of older novels for six weeks, so I picked up several to read in spare moments. Mr. Lucky is about a guy who becomes exceptionally lucky after jumping from his Vegas hotel during a fire. he survives and goes on to win just about every game he plays. Former cop Tony Valentine is hired by Vegas casino owners to see where Mr. Lucky gets his wins. Surely he is cheating? My sister wrote to the entire family about her love for the non-fiction title Unbroken, which has over 2500 five-star reviews on Amazon. It tells the true story of an Olympic runner who goes to war in the Pacific in the 1940s. We get to know him, his buddies and flight mates, and then his plane crashes and a three year attempt to survive begins. I am only 100 pages into it, but the loss of life in the Pacific front is no more easy to understand than that in the European front. We just sent boys out to die in badly made planes; many flew over the Pacific and were never heard from again. So far, it's a tough read. So here is your chance to educate us on what we really should be reading, or just on what you like to read. I hope to hear from other readers, but one never knows!

Damn. Four Aces will go to the casino and tun that $500 into $5000 in the blink of an eye! So it went to the best man, the guy who will make the most out of it!

Thor has done his homework. He educates his readers on the Protecting Cyberspace As A National Asset Act (net neutrality) He's a nay PCNAA- allows the prez to shut down the entire internet the 9-11 State of Emergency Act- supposedly allows the prez to declare one for up to 2 years, yet it is still in effect after 9-11 as prez keeps renewing it- it waives habeas corpus and the right of the National Guard to appear before a grand jury, which he explains means that if they disobey orders, it is only the military that can discipline The media monitoring initiative. If you post on a social network, you become part of the media, and thus subject to surveillance. Take that Facebook! Of course we already know that most communication companies have immunity if they wrongfully turnover records. There's a lot more...all scary. Damn straight we better trust our leaders! But they are the ones who enacted the Patriot Act without even reading it!

She attended the Yankee game this afternoon, and sat in the bleachers! Can't picture many Supreme Court justices doing that! http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/supreme-court-justice-sonia-sotomayor-joins-yankee-stadium-bleacher-creatures-first-inning-wednesday-article-1.1126783

The Brad Thor novel, Black List, centers around a shadow government of very powerful men who plan to use the Utah Data Center to nefarious ends. Very timely novel, and a fun read, at least for me.

India has its power back, thankfully. I woke up in the middle of the night and this came to my mind. I hate that the distribution of wealth is so uneven- there or anywhere. I hate that the Catholic church continues to insist women not use birth control, thus ensuring a big population of unwanted babies and even wanted babies in homes that cannot afford them. The poor kids don't stand a chance of escaping hell on earth.

I mean, they don't even have spell check! Updatre your security info

Senator Frank Church also said it well, on August 17th, 1975. His quote now leads Brad Thor's latest novel, Black List, focusing on the extreme surveillance of US citizens. (Yes, I read Brad Thor novels!) But, Politico covered the quote last year: By Sept. 11, 2011, the words of George Orwell in his novel “1984” will have become prophetic. “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,” he wrote in 1949, long before the Internet. “You have to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard.” On Sept. 10, 2001, however, Winston would have found a radically different society. The NSA, the surveillance equivalent of a nuclear bomb, was allowed to point its massive antennas and satellites only away from the country. Before an American could be targeted, a judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would first have to find a link to terrorism or espionage in order to issue a warrant. And installing permanent taps on all of the country’s major communications links would have been impossible. More than 35 years earlier, one person warned of such a possibility. On Aug. 17, 1975, as America was enjoying a lazy summer watching “Jaws” and “The Exorcist” at the movies, Idaho Sen. Frank Church took his seat on “Meet the Press.” For months, as the first chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Church had been conducting the first in-depth investigation of America’s growing intelligence community. When he looked into the NSA, he came away shocked by its potential for abuse. Without mentioning the agency’s name — almost forbidden at the time — he nonetheless offered an unsolicited but grave warning: “That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter,” Church said. “There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. “I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” Church’s warning then has even more resonance today. In 1975, most people communicated only by telephone and the mail. While the NSA had the technical capability back then to intercept the limited telephone calls sent by satellite, it lacked the capability to monitor the millions of calls transmitted around the country over wires, the predominant method used, or anything sent through the mail. Read more (and there is more!): http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62999.html

That's certainly one theory. But my experience was that the dollar was not keeping up. To be fair, it has risen since I was there in March.

I didn't realize that the cute British swimmer above, Tom Daley, had been the victim of a harasser: http://www.news.com.au/sport/london-olympics/british-diver-taunted-by-sick-twitter-troll/story-fndpu6dv-1226439220675

But lookin, you could have called a friend over!

600 million people are now without electricity in India as a power failure is in its second day. What is shocking about this number is that half of those people would not have power even if there was no electric failure. 300 million people in India go without electricity every single day! I find that shocking!

From today's NY Post gossip column: Katie Couric has fallen for a handsome financier seven months after her split with her boy-toy Brooks Perlin, Page Six can exclusively reveal. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/couric_falls_for_financier_L2UzcojJdxv75B9Y1Yv63I#ixzz22DKkSpRz

The WSJ reports today that inflation in Brazil is once again becoming a scary thing. The government seems concerned about slow growth, but not inflation, which is rising. Food prices, normally stable in this time of year, are rising. The annual inflation rate, through mid-July, is 5.4%, and even higher for food, although no specific figure was given. Economists predict inflation at 5.5% for the next two years. Yet the rate for July alone was 6.67%. This, in an economy only growing 2% per year. Prices will undoubtedly rise for tourists, since we can afford it, right? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444405804577559463415529678.html

Hint:

It always helps to check the profile before wondering: JKane Member Since 01 Mar 2008 Offline Last Active YESTERDAY, 10:58 PM (EMPHASIS ADDED! ) (on the other hand, perhaps there is a James Klein posting too.I didn't find such a name, but I did find JamPowerButt Member Since 24 Jan 2007 Offline Last Active Nov 29 1999 11:00 PM Now I wonder how he could have last been active before the site even began, and before he signed up. But, with a power jammed butt, anything is possible!)

I took this as an effort by Scalia to be humorous. He went to the extremes with cannons and rocket launchers. Surely even the NRA would not support those. Surely.

And he gets a nice write-up in the Wall Street Journal. Uchimura Mixes Strength and Beauty: http://nline.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444226904577556823156361092.html